Alex Enfiedjian 00:12 Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the worship team podcast. This is Alex Enfiedjian, your host. And if you are a new listener today, first time, I just wanted to take the time to say thank you Welcome, hope you enjoy the podcast. For those of you who are newer listeners, I just want to encourage you to go back and look at all of our older episodes because we’ve covered a ton of different topics from you know how to create a culture of musical excellence, how to improve your stage presence, what to do when a team member sins, what is prophetic worship, all these different topics that will hopefully be helpful to you and to your team members, as you strive to grow as a worship leader and a worship team members. So check out the old episodes, you can go to the website Alexon music. com, that’s al XN. Music calm and just find the all episodes link and check out what you’re missing. Or obviously you can do it right from the podcast app. So today is episode number 12. And we are talking with Jason how otzma of worship artistry. And the big theme for today is getting the best out of your current players. How do you take your current players and make them sound as good as they can? Jason covers two kind of main ideas. In this episode. I don’t want to give them away too quickly. But just train Are you training your people? Are you giving them tools and training that they need to get better. And then the second idea is just to not try to make your team be something that they’re not, you know, your church doesn’t have to sound like Hillsong the people that God has put there are the people he wants there because he wants the music to sound a certain way at your church. So really just take what you have steward it well and make it better. And that’s what we’re gonna be talking about today. So sticking to the end, because there’s some good practical advice at the end of the episode. Alright, see at the backside. All right. Hey, everybody, I’m here with Jason how itsma of worship artistry. He is coming to you from the northern part of Washington. Hello, Jason. How’s it going? Alex going good, man. Thanks for being here. Oh, excited to do it. I love what you’re doing. I love what you’re doing. So we’re equal there. Hey, okay, so, Jason, I think a lot of our listeners know about you and what you do, but for those that don’t, could you give us like a 35 second version about who you are your family and kind of what you’re currently doing. Alright, 35

Jason Houtsma 02:54 seconds ready said, Go. Yeah, I am. I’m the worship pastor at mosaic church in Bellingham, Washington. I have a wonderful wife and two rambunctious boys, five and eight. And I am the co founder, creative director, and guitar instructor for worship, artistry, calm. We’re a website where we, where we instruct worship musicians in in music and help them really bring their best. And what we’re doing right now is really exciting. We’ve been a guitar lesson website for a long time for about five years with about 300 lessons. And now we’ve kind of gotten this place where we’ve hired on Additional musicians. So we have keyboard, instructor, drums, bass. And what we’re really focusing on is taking these songs that you know, Hill song, and Chris Tomlin put out, we licensed them all. So we have the Masters, it’s all completely legal. And we take those songs that have like 30 tracks and 40 tracks on them. And we narrow them down, put them into five piece arrangements. And you’d be shocked at how much like the record sounds.

Alex Enfiedjian 03:58 Yeah, so basically, what you guys want to do is you want to help average worship teams across America and the world. sound great, and and be as great as the record. Right? Yeah, that’s what you’re doing.

Jason Houtsma 04:12 Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s really kind of how we do it. But I think what we’re really trying to do is help musicians just in general just bring their best and if they keep bringing their best, then their best is going to keep getting better. And so we’re we’re training people who have no skill whatsoever and just are starting from scratch and want to play worship and lead worship and have that amazing heart. Because you you know, you can’t teach heart necessarily, but you can teach skill and so we teach skill, and we do it in a way that they can understand it and grow with it and help them really think like a musician. And then we’re also then helping you know you’re more seasoned is more seasoned musicians the where lessons are set up, you know, they can easily just watch a quick play through with the you know, the electric guitar raised out or the keyboard raise up, be able to see it. See the show. Music are tabs and it’s, you know, they can learn the song really quickly. And it just kind of makes their life a lot easier. So it’s kind of like the whole spectrum. But really the whole thing is about, you know, we believe God deserves our best and, and we’re trying to help people bring that wherever they are in that process.

Alex Enfiedjian 05:15 Yeah. So worship artistry kind of started with this crazy idea that anyone with the right training could bring their best to their team and add value and beauty to their team’s songs into the worship experience. Right. So I think if I would rephrase what you just said in another way, I’d say that worship artistry is goal is to help worship leaders get the best out of their current players, right? Like, anyone, or even like, I think you said, even players who aren’t on the team yet who maybe aren’t ready to be on the team, you guys want to help bring that person up to the level where they’re ready. So I want to drill into this idea a little bit about getting the best out of our current players, because I think a lot of us worship leaders can fall into this trap that like, man, if only I had a better electric guitar player, or, or if only I had an electric guitar player, period, right? Or, or if only I had a better bass player or better singers, or a better sound system, then we’d have awesome worship. But what you’re saying is, it’s not about necessarily wanting something better, that’s out there somewhere, but it’s about taking what you already have, and making that better. So could you kind of speak into that a little bit?

Jason Houtsma 06:32 Yeah, you know, I think it’s interesting, you know, church environment is a is a really unique space, because, you know, we have a certain certain thing that we’re shooting for, you know, these different levels. And we don’t really create pathways for people to actually grow and get better. And we, we kind of set this standard that they that they have to hit right, and often fall short of and then feel terrible about themselves. So we all know that, that God loves our worship, that God loves the offering, you know, as long as we’re doing our best, that’s why we really came out with that, like, bring your best, we use that all the time. And so where’s your bars, you really came out of that idea of, we want to help people, we want to give them a roadmap. You know, I was on staff at a church for about a couple years, but I was on a staff of a church, and we had 1500 to 2000 on a Sunday. And it was a bunch of different services. And I also lead the, you know, youth group and that kind of stuff. And, um, what would inevitably happen is, you’d have somebody come in and say, I want to, I want to play for worship, I have, you know, I play guitar, let’s say, and they come in, and they, they, they try like, okay, cool, let’s play and they try out. And you know, we were pretty laid back, I was like, Okay, let’s sit down and play and just see how you do and, and, you know, a lot of times, they just weren’t ready to be able to play with a group of people. And we had no way of giving them a map, we basically just be like, Well, yeah, you’re not quite there, go take lessons and come back when you’re better. I mean, essentially, is what happened, and what that person would end up walking away is hurt, usually, and no matter how kind we were about it, you know, it’s still it’s still kind of hurts your ego. But we didn’t say, Hey, you know, you’re not quite ready. But go back and learn these 20 songs, here’s 20 songs, and here’s like a great instruction and come back when you feel like you can play these songs, along with the recordings and that you’re there. And, and you can work towards that and then come back and let’s do it again. You know, that it? We just don’t create that, that, that roadmap for people. And so I think that was kind of, you know, part of the heart of the of the lessons. But then even beyond that, then Okay, so now you’ve got this now, okay, let’s, let’s try and help you grow a little bit more, and to get to a place where, you know, they can serve the body in the best way that they can.

Alex Enfiedjian 08:48 Yeah, so just really helping people get better is is what you guys want to do. And what I think all worship leaders should do, because that that’s what our role is, as a worship leader, and as a church leader is to equip people to be better than they currently are. Right? Yes, exactly. That’s true, not just in ministry, but of like our marriages, or of a business or a parenting, like, it’s easy to want something else that’s out there. But that’s not what God has given you. Right? He’s given you something, he’s put something concrete in your hands. And it’s our job to take that something and make it what we want it to be. So let’s talk a little bit about that concept of taking what you currently have and making it better. So Jason, you’re besides worship artistry, you’re a worship leader at a church, you have a team of people, how do you train your team members, besides, you know, just sending them links to your videos, which I’m sure you do.

Jason Houtsma 09:49 Yeah, you know, there’s there’s a number of things that I do, I can’t I have kind of a unique environment now. Because I’m in a smaller you know, I like I said, I used to work in this large church. So I I draw a lot of things from worship artistry from that experience. But I’m at my church now is like 200 people. And so what I really try and focus on is doing things that sound really great with only a few instruments. And so, you know, for example, like, I think one of the things that really inspires musicians to play worship is when they sound good, you know, and, you know, I’ve been in scenarios where, you know, you’re trying to do so much with players that don’t have the ability to do it. You know, and, and all you’re doing is frustrating them, they know that it doesn’t sound good, you know, the people that are singing along, no, it doesn’t sound good, and they still love those people. And it’s great. Like, there’s no, I want to be real clear, like, I don’t think that they’re like, if you’re putting an effort you’re worshiping, like, that’s the way that I very much view it like, I don’t think there’s some God’s standard God has that he, you know, gets mad that you, Biff that see court, but like I’m trying to create great music with, with the ability to have. So for example, in my old church, I was in charge of this youth band. And I was constantly like, back and forth with this youth pastor, who’s a great guy. But you know, we had a drummer who couldn’t keep time and would not practice. We had a bass player who was disinterested, and just kind of showed up every once in a while. And we had, we had a couple girls who were really good singers, we had a guy who was not. And then we, and then we had, we had another guy who was a good guitarist. And so you know, they were always like, band, and it needs to sound like Hillsong United, and it needs to be like huge and all these things. And I was like, it’s not going to, like it’s not until they’re willing to put in the time to practice. So instead, what we would do is we would tear it down, and we would do acoustic sets. And, and what we would do is we would have, you know, two of the girls who could sing really well, the guy who could play acoustic guitar really well, then you’d have like the guy who wasn’t so great at acoustic guitar, but he’d be really low in the mix and kind of quiet back there. And he would just kind of learn from those better musicians. And then you ended up man, what a worse upset that it sounds great. They’re, they’re leading it, people are excited to follow them. Even though it’s not big and epic. It’s still like, man, it sounds really great. And it it just works, right. And so in my current situation, I have 200 people in my church. And you know, it’s a, it’s a, it’s just a different kind of a thing and that kind of small of an environment. And so, sometimes we have drums, sometimes we don’t sometimes we have keys, sometimes we don’t. But every time I’m always kind of arranging it specifically with with simple stuff. And I usually only take one person who needs a lot of work. And I like for example, I have a kid right now who’s awesome, he’s got a great heart. But you know, I send him my worship artistry articles that have my K, you know, check out this thing about playing acoustic guitar and, but I coach him up, I talked to him throughout the week, hey, make sure you’re when you’re at this song, think about this. And then when he comes in, he’s, he’s on my hip, you know, and it’s like, I know that my other musicians can carry what they’re going to carry. All my energy is going into growing that kid and helping him learn more about how to think like a musician how to play on this part, you know, hey, don’t just strum with me, try doing this little arpeggio here. play this part. Oh, you know what, this is a great opportunity for you to play a lead line, let’s pick out something really simple here. I’ve simplified this line for you. And so he gets to experience success in that he’s in that he’s learning. And he’s also sounding good. He’s not taking things that are too hard. And our band sounds good. Because we’re all like, we’re all rooting for him. And we have enough solid players to hold it down and do what we do. Once again, we don’t have a but we don’t have 10 people on stage, you know, we’ve got three sitting around in a circle, you know, and it’s like, it works. It sounds really great. But it’s because we we we work with what we have and don’t try and achieve something we don’t have.

Alex Enfiedjian 13:54 Yeah, there are two things that I want to point out that you just said, One, don’t try to do what you can’t do. Right? workout, it’s okay to practice and try and get there. But recognize when it’s not quite there yet, right? I think that’s so wise, because I think a lot of us hear what’s on the radio and go, Oh, I gotta sound like that. And you’ve got like two acoustic guitar players and a drummer who can’t stay on the click track and a bass player who likes to slap you know, it’s like you can’t you’re not going to sound like the radio. So don’t try change your arrangement to do what you can do well, right. So don’t try to do what you can’t do. And then the other thing that I think was really wise is what you said, only train one at a time. You know, like, don’t put four people on the stage who aren’t ready. Bring one kid in who’s not ready, that you can train and like you said, to have him on your hip and spend all of your time training him and have the rest of the team solid enough to where they don’t need as much instruction. And I think what’s cool about that, Jason is that you’re being really intentional about training like training is Built into your atmosphere, because I don’t know if a lot of churches do that, like train up younger people to be great. I got the experience in youth band. That’s how I started in worship ministry. I don’t know if that’s your story too. But I think youth band is such a critical role in training up younger people to be ready for the the Sunday morning. mainstage. You know, so I love that you’re I love that you’re training. But I love like what you said only take on one at a time, at least honest on a team context for a Sunday morning service, right?

Jason Houtsma 15:36 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, it’s interesting now that there’s a world where you can basically buy your guitar track, or buy your bass track and all that kind of stuff. I think sometimes things just kind of were so we put sound above the person. Yeah, you know, and, and, hey, it’s cool if you can have that drum loop. And, you know, it’s great if your drummer can play to a click, and you guys can do that. Like, I’m not against that at all. But I also think you have to train up people, because because for some people, that’s going to be the place they belong at church. And when you’re at church, it’s like you, you need to have a place to serve in a place of belonging. And it doesn’t mean that you take somebody who has absolutely no talent and like, well, we’ll just keep trying, it’s like, they might have a different gift. That’s okay. But there’s something so satisfying about having a group of musicians all playing together, and sounding great, and not needing tracks and not needing not needing all this extra stuff. And it’s so much more satisfying for your musicians to go, oh, gosh, like, check it out. Like I learned the simple drum beat. And it, it sounded good. We sounded great today, like that’s inspiring that makes people want to come back. That’s, that’s a joy. More for the musician, probably than than anybody else, you know, but it’s ministry needs to be, it should be fun.

Alex Enfiedjian 16:57 Yeah. And like you said, it’s not necessarily about sounding great buying the tracks so that your band sounds like the CD. That’s not what God called us to do. It’s about people. God called us to pour into people and train up people and raise up other leaders. And I just think about, like Ephesians. Four, it says that our job as leaders is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. And that’s what you’re saying, You’re saying, it’s not about sounding like the album, it’s about teaching people how to be good musicians and good worship leaders. And to help the people that God has put into our care get better. So those are a couple of the practical things that you do to train your team. Are there other things that you do to train your team?

Jason Houtsma 17:41 Those are kind of the main things, you know, I mean, I think one of the one of the things, one of the things that’s really on my heart is to really help people think like a musician. You know, we there’s so many tools out there now, or you can get this app that’ll show you this chord, or you can, here’s the chart, and here’s the chart in every key and pick which one you want. And, you know, I have people like on our website all the time will be like, Oh, why don’t you have the chart, it’s the song in all these different keys, Mike, well, we want to teach a man to fish, we want to, we actually want to teach you to transpose, it doesn’t take very long, it’s not that hard, once you learn how to do it, and you practice it. And so like, for example, like with my, with my team, I try and equip them with charts in advance, I try and just kind of be on message about what we’re trying to do, you know, and always, always having fun with them always kind of trying to be really aware of where they’re at. And just kind of always just, just always being in a coaching mindset, a lot of our music at my current church is is original. So, and we do a lot of hymns and different arrangements that we use some stuff stuff on the website as well. But, you know, in those scenarios, it’s like, well, what are you here for this, you know, I want to give them creative freedom, and give them an opportunity to step out and try different things too, and not be super rigid. I think that’s an important part of training people as well as giving them an opportunity to, to really own a part. You know, I always tell people, you know, learning a part of the song, you know, that the exact part from the record, like that should inform you your part, but it shouldn’t necessarily define your part. You know, because it’s, it should sound a little different in your hands than it does in my hands. Like, that’s just, that’s music. Right? And so I think, I think just kind of encouraging people to be creative, and just being really, really forgiving. At the same time, you know, letting them know, oh, you know, hey, maybe that wasn’t the best idea of Hey, you need to tune your guitar. That’s one of my favorites. Like, yeah, you probably stop in tune again, you know. But yeah, just being an encouraging presence in their life. Not the person that is like, oh, the worship leader looked back at me and I’m totally messed up with that. No, now I’m probably in the doghouse. You know, like you Yeah, oh my gosh,

Alex Enfiedjian 20:01 no, you know, it’s funny that you say encouraging as part of training, just being encouraging as a person, that that is so true, because I know when I first started here, like the team wasn’t that great. In fact, when I first started, there wasn’t a team. And so we had to build a team, which is why it wasn’t that great because it was kind of new people playing together for the first time. And I remember I was discouraged a lot. And if my team members are listening, I’m sorry, but you probably already knew that. I was discouraged a lot. And like, Man, I wish it could be better. I wish it could be better. Because as a musician, as a worship leader, you’re probably at a higher caliber than a lot of other people, at least hopefully. And so you’re kind of discouraged, that it’s not sounding how you want it to sound. And you know what people pick up on that, when we’re negative, it just makes people not want to practice it makes people not want to just, but when you say, Gosh, it’s sounding so good, gosh, I’m so and not that you’re lying. But just that you’re having a positive attitude. Having that positive encouraging attitude actually helps people get better. And I don’t even know how to explain it. It’s almost like some magical thing that happens. But just being encouraging and being positive. And realizing that this is a process that takes time, is it gives people the freedom to just learn and grow. And it sounds like that’s what you’re doing too.

Jason Houtsma 21:23 Well, I, you know, I think about when I was a kid, and you know, first playing in church, and Stephanie, you had all these musicians around around me that did you know, all these older guys, and they’d be playing forever. And it’s like, I mean, I was terrible. Sometimes I remember there’s one time where I thought, like, I just shredded up, man, I was like, the ripping guitar player that you really don’t want on your worship team. And I remember being like, oh, man, like, that was cool. And I remember the bass player looked at me, and he was like, Huh, a little busy. You know, and he wasn’t discouraging at all. It was like, it was like, that little thing that just gonna help me go, Oh, I should probably he didn’t have to go into big detail about how I was like, completely over playing and soloing through every section. You know, like, he just had to say that little bit and was like, Oh, yeah, like, I know, okay, I need to I need to back it off. And at the same time, having guys that would just when I would do something well, you know, however rare it might have been in the beginning. We’re just kind of give me a little nod, like, hey, that sounds good. Oh, man, you know, and it and it just means so much. Do you as a new person on the team, or as you know, as a growing musician, it’s okay, that it helps you it helps you understand, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing.

Alex Enfiedjian 22:34 That is gold. Because what you just said is, when it’s bad, don’t over emphasize what’s bad about it. And when it’s good when they do something good, then, you know, just give them that like, Yes, that was that was the right thing. That was the right drum filled out. So not focusing on Oh, gosh, you know, you’re pitchy and going into detail about that. But oh, man, that harmony that you saying was awesome, you know, so that’s huge. Because I, when I first came here, I started this stupid thing called, because I wanted to train my team, I started this stupid thing called personal coaching emails, that already sounds like a terrible idea. But go on. Oh, man, I know, right? It’s like, why didn’t I know that. But uh, so I would keep this Evernote list of each team member and the things that that I wanted them to work on over the next six months, because I’m like, it’s my job to train my team. And they’re not as good as I want them to be. And I’ll help them get better. And so I would, once a quarter write an email to each team member saying, hey, you’re doing great in this area in this area in this area, and this is really strong. And here are the two areas that I want you to work on over the next, you know, six months. And you know, in an idea of itself, it’s not that bad of an idea, because it was positive. And it was training and it was just showing them areas that they could work on. But also subconsciously it was it was telling them. I’m not happy with the way you’re playing, you know, even though it was worded positively. And here’s here’s the biggest The biggest difference. And the biggest downfall of it was the format. Email is not the right way to give critique, right. Oh, man. So one lady, you know, said I’d rather talk about this with you. And I was like, Yeah, you’re right, we should have and it made me realize I just scratched the whole project. After that. I was like, I’m not going to train my team via email, because email is so impersonal. And they can’t tell your vocal inflection or anything. So if you’re going to train your team, it’s good to have things that you want them to work on, but don’t, don’t email it to them.

Jason Houtsma 24:51 Well, it’s interesting, you know, you know, there’s like two words that we use for, you know, people who lead worship, we call them worship leaders, and then we call them worship pastors. You know, and, and to me, like worship pastor is such a should be a much more accurate term for what our job is, you know, because it’s like, we are pastoring people. Yeah, I know, I know, I have a seminary degree, but I’m shepherding them, you know, these are my people, I protect these people, you know, and they know that I’ve got their back, and they know that I want them to get better and that it’s like, I am totally, I want them to win. Like, that’s, that’s what I’m there for, you know, and it’s a slightly different picture, right? Because I think, you know, there’s a culture amongst musicians. And it’s, it’s not absent in the church in any way. But I think it’s just a music musician thing, in general, is that we’re super, we get super competitive, and we get really ego driven. And we get, we, we try and protect that ego. And so it’s like, for example, I used to be in a worship band that, you know, we were talking to record labels and all kinds of stuff. I mean, it was happening, you know, and we’d go back and you know, you’d be backstage at some place, it’d be a bunch of bands playing and, and inevitably, right away, everyone’s puffing up their chest, sizing up the room, trying to decide who like, you talked about, like, oh, how’s it going, man? Like, tell me about your band, you know? And like, Well, we’ve been talking to this producer, and we’re going to, we’re in the studio right now making a record. And they’re just like, trying to just like, are you better than me? Or my further along than you? Let me see, let me see. Let me see. You know, and, and that kind of a culture has no place in the church. We are, we are servants. That’s what we do as worship musicians. And so we serve, we serve God, we serve our congregation, and then we serve each other. And so being in that space, where it’s like, trying to try to one up the other person or make them like, feel like it’s not a safe environment, learn or be like, it’s all about the product. It’s not all about the product. It’s about the people. And if they’re bringing their best, if they’re doing their best, you know, they’re gonna get better. But that’s, that’s the goal. That’s the mission is like, it’s a community, like worship is a community expression that we all do together.

Alex Enfiedjian 26:59 Yeah. Okay, so let me Jason, those are some of the things you do to train, let me go through a few of my things that I do with my team to train my team. And you can feel free to comment on any of these. So here are some of the things that I’ve tried doing to help my teams get better. Obviously, the Personal Training, email, personal coaching emails scratched that don’t do that. But the this podcast actually started as training material that I was developing for my team members. And I figured what the heck, why not record the content and spread it out to more people to be equipped by it. So I send them this podcast. If there’s another podcast that I hear, like David, Santa Steven, or you know, anything from all about worship, I’ll shoot I’ll shoot. If it’s like about drummers, I’ll send that over. I think I sent the podcast that you did with john Nicole about guitar players, I sent that to some of my guitar players, because that was gold. So sending them podcasts, like you said about your team, I think you send them your articles that you write or other articles, I send my team articles that are helpful. When I have a young worship leader lead worship, I will film it and I’ll bring them in, sit down with them. And we’ll talk through their set. And I found that that’s been really helpful because they’re like, oh, man, I didn’t realize what an awkward pause that was right there. Or while my prayer was just kind of me rambling, you know, it’s like,

Jason Houtsma 28:24 self critique is is a very powerful thing. You can really see how you how you are, yeah, normally don’t have a hard time finding things that are wrong with us.

Alex Enfiedjian 28:34 Right. And, and I also used to film when I first started, I filmed every single set and sent it to the team. And I said, look at your guy’s stage presence. Look at your stage presence. But again, that was the discouraging Alex. Not the encouraging Alex. So I think focusing on the negative is it you got to be careful about that. So but the self critique, like you said, that’s where they sit down and watch it. That’s That’s pure gold right there. So go ahead, you have something say,

Jason Houtsma 29:03 I mean, I see it all the time I edit my own videos for worship, artistry, all our teachers do. And it’s amazing how quickly everyone’s been getting better at it. Because they, like don’t need to tell them like, Oh, yeah, you said I’m a lot. They’re like, Oh, my gosh, I said I’m a lot I need to make sure that I don’t do that anymore. You know, it’s like, self critique is huge.

Alex Enfiedjian 29:22 Yeah, so good. recording yourself is huge. So the other the other couple tools that I give to my team to train is like Paul galosh has a training set of DVDs that are really good. We don’t have a lot of electric guitar players. Actually, I’m the only one. So I watched some of your worship artistry guitar videos, but I know you’re moving into drums and bass now. So I’ll probably start sending those to our team as well. So worship artistry is an awesome resource. Good job, Jason. And then like I bought a bunch of vocal warmup CDs for my singers, and I tell them put this in your car before church and warm up when you drive on Sunday mornings. And we use a girl named Shelly Kristin who has a really good warm up set. And then the last thing I think, for training is what you already hit on earlier, which is like the youth band, you know, like, youth bands are the best training ground for for people. So I think they’ve got they’ve

Jason Houtsma 30:16 got time to practice. Yeah. Which is something that most adults do not have near as much. Right, you know, right. I mean, I, when I was a kid, I thought I was busy. But I also when I think about it, Mike, I probably put it in five to six hours a day just playing guitar, so I wasn’t that busy. Yeah, busy playing guitar.

Alex Enfiedjian 30:33 Exactly. So those are some of the things I used to train, do you have any thoughts or any final thoughts for our listeners about just taking what you currently have, and doing the best you can, you know,

Jason Houtsma 30:45 I would say, what, what you have the two of the people that you have with, you should define what you play, but it shouldn’t define the quality with which you play. And so, you know, we always want to be aspiring to do better, you know, and as leaders, that’s our job to help with that. But there’s, it has to come from the musician too, you know, it’s like I did, one of the things that the most discouraging to me is when somebody comes in, and they’re like, not very good, and they don’t really care to get better, you know, and, um, that’s where the impatience comes in. And you’re like, Well, you know, what are we doing here? Do you care about this or not, you know, and I’m, so I’d like, I’d encourage, I just say, you know, work with what you’ve got, and just try and make that really good. You know, and then when you do that, you’ll grow when you’re when you when you sound good, people will want to play with you. And it’s okay to be kind of sparse and empty, like, Hey, man, unplugged got popular. And in the 90s. And it still works great for worship, people actually hear themselves sing, you actually hear a congregation versus hearing a huge sound system. And there is that so life giving, I think, both to the congregation and to the band, because it’s it gives it that feeling of like, well, we can do this. And so you don’t have to not play something well, just because you’re the only guy playing, you know, you can, you can always get better.

Alex Enfiedjian 32:04 That’s good. Okay, Jason, how can our listeners connect with you if they want to find you online or check out worship artistry, which I would highly encourage everyone listening, if you haven’t checked it out is so worth your time, and your investment for your team to help them get better? So tell them where do they find you.

Jason Houtsma 32:23 worship our street comm is my that’s my baby, I can always be found there. So worship our street comm is is the is the place and I love hearing from people,

Alex Enfiedjian 32:33 sweet man. And I want to give you the opportunity to kind of just share what is worship, artistry cost? And what is someone getting when they invest in that?

Jason Houtsma 32:41 Yeah, so worship artistry is a subscription service, you know, you get to try it free for the first month for an individual, it’s going to be $85 for a year. And that’s, I mean, that’s the cost of one month of private guitar lessons, and probably actually cheaper, you know, and so you get 300 plus lessons plus a constantly growing library. All right, they’re for that one price that one time a year. And then you can also add your teams. So it starts anywhere from $6, a team member, and then the more team members you have, basically you just start getting free team members, you know, so they all have access to every instrument. So your, you know, your guitarist who needs to step in on bass for the weekend can can do that, and actually sound like a bass player, not just a guy playing guitar on bass, you can help grow your musicians. And then you know, both the piano and the guitar lessons always have a section. So we teach the songs to make them sound like the record. But then we always have in the piano and the acoustic guitar sections, kind of more more discussion about a solo arrangement where Hey, if you’re leading this on piano, and just holding down these three chords isn’t going to do it for you. Like this is how you would approach it. And here’s the rhythm. And here’s kind of the way to go with that. And then with guitar, I do the same thing where we talk dynamics, probably bring in some other melody lines. So those are my favorite things to do, because I get to take a song and go Okay, now if I was just playing this by myself, what would I do? And so it’s like, I’m going to bring in this piano line. And I’m going to add this little riff here. And then I’m going to play more percussively in this section, and I’m going to grow it to be you know, dynamics so that you’re not just a guy banging away on a guitar. Yeah,

Alex Enfiedjian 34:15 man. Okay, Jason, that’s like a ridiculous value. So I’m just gonna say it. All of you who are worship leaders, you need to get this for your teams, because this is like crazy, crazy value. $85 a year is like, for what you’re getting is insane. So thank you for equipping the church Jason at such a low price. Well, it’s

Jason Houtsma 34:35 it’s a gift to do it. You know, we didn’t we didn’t want price to be a hindrance. Because ultimately, as much as you know, it’s a business and all that kind of stuff. And we have to we have to pay licensing. I mean, we’re like I said, we’re legit, you know, and so we don’t, we’re not doing things that are illegal and we’re we want things to be I always joke around, there’s no condemnation for those who are in worship artistry. But at the same time, it’s like, you know, we want to equip as many people as possible Our heart is to teach and to train. And it’s cool that that we’re getting to a point where we can make a living on it. But the ultimate goal is to train worship leaders. So more than happy to, you know, I wish we could just do it for free. I know there’s people that would love for us to do it for free, but I need to like at least eat a little bit.

Alex Enfiedjian 35:19 Just a little bit, though, just a little. Alright, man. Well, thank you so much for your time. And we will, we will, I’m sure hear from you again in the future. Alright, thanks, Alex. I appreciate it. God bless he wrote. Alright, some good stuff in there. Thank you, Jason, for giving us your time and your wisdom. And I just wanted to say one final thing on this topic. And that is, it takes time. If you want your current team to get better, just realize it’s going to take time, time to get to know each other as people as brothers and sisters in Christ and as musicians. And over time as you get to know each other relationally and musically, things just start to click and things start to happen. And the band starts sounding Great. So don’t rush it. You can’t rush it anyway. Just let it play its course be faithful to train and teach and guide and love your team. So that’s it for this episode. If you want to leave us a review on iTunes, it always helps us. Otherwise, I’ll see you next month with a very special surprise episode for you. So look forward to that in October. Alright, God bless you and have a great Sunday.